(a) Technical Field
The present invention relates to a common jig apparatus for mounting fenders of multifarious vehicles. More particularly, it relates to a common fender mounting jig apparatus for multifarious vehicles that is capable of responding to various fender panel shapes of multifarious vehicles.
(b) Background Art
Body in white or BIW refers to the stage in automotive design or automobile manufacturing process in which a car body's sheet metal components have been welded together but the removable parts (e.g., doors, hoods, and deck lids as well as fenders the motor, chassis sub-assemblies, or trim (glass, seats, upholstery, electronics, etc.) have not been added and the vehicle has not been painted.
During this process, panels of a body-in-white for forming a vehicle body are manufactured in a press process, and conveyed to the body-in-white assembling factory to be assembled onto a vehicle body. The assembled body-in-white is mounted with appearance panels which include the door trunk lid, the hood, fender or the like, and then conveyed to a painting process to be painted.
Next, the vehicle is processed in a trim line, where various kinds of auto parts including the engine, the transmission, and the interior and exterior materials are assembled to form one complete vehicle.
Generally, a worker mounts fenders on a vehicle using a fender mounting jig apparatus in a body-in-white assembling factory. The fender mounting jig apparatus, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, includes a fender mounting jig 1 which is mounted along with a plurality of clamp units to support and fix the fender. A cylinder 2 for jig rotation is configured to rotate the fender mounting jig 1, and a horizontal movement means 3 is configured for moving the fender mounting jig 1 in a horizontal direction and in a vertical direction.
A method for mounting a fender using the fender mounting jig apparatus typically includes loading a fender, fixing the fender, rotating the fender mounting jig 1 in a 90-degree arc by means of the jig rotating cylinder 2, making the fender approach a body-in-white (BIW), and allowing the worker to assemble the fender onto the body-in-white by means of an engagement means such as bolts.
In general, the fenders of prior model year vehicles differ in their size and shape from those of a new or current model year vehicles. Therefore, it is necessary to newly manufacture the fenders or modify a large number of clamp units to support or fix the fenders of the new vehicle to the existing fender mounting jig 1.
In order to respond to the sizes and shapes according to the models of vehicles, the conventional fender mounting jig 1, as shown in FIG. 2. The conventional fender mounting jig 1 has corresponding exclusive clamp units 4, 5, 6 according to each of the models of vehicles (e.g., model A, model B and model C of vehicles). Thus, the conventional fender mounting jig 1 can comply with variations in sizes and shapes of panels of new vehicles when new fenders of new vehicles are to be applied to the fender mounting jig 1.
However, one noted disadvantage of the conventional jig discussed above is that the conventional exclusive clamp units 4, 5, 6 cannot comply with different sizes and shapes of fenders when there are more than 4 models of vehicles using different sized or shaped fenders. In other words, although the fenders of 4 different vehicle models may be clamped with the exclusive clamp units 4, 5, 6, more than 4 different fenders cannot be accounted for. Accordingly, whenever a new fender of a new model of vehicle is assembled, a corresponding new exclusive clamp unit must be installed. As would be understood by those skilled in the art, it is difficult to install new clamp units due to the lack of space for installing surrounding the exclusive clamp unit in the jig.
Thus, the existing clamp unit must be replaced with a new clamp unit whenever there is a change in vehicle model. This results in increase in investment cost for new equipments and requires additional time for installing new equipments and parts and any exchanges needed thereof thereby also increasing manufacturing costs.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.